Diamonds and Water
by Xanrivash
Summary: The worst part, he reflected as he trudged through the desert, was that this was technically a promotion...
_I've been through the desert on a horse with no name, it felt good to be out of the rain...in the desert, you can remember your name 'cause there ain't no one to give you no pain..._

Demyx didn't particularly enjoy being out of the rain, or in the desert; the level of sheer discomfort he felt in such a dry environment seemed calibrated to drive him slowly insane. Assuming isolation didn't get the job done first. This world had evidence of previous life - most rock outcroppings that he passed held some kind of fossil remains or another - but damned if he could find so much as a vulture right now. Or so much as an insect. Or so much as a patch of lichen. In fact, he was pretty sure he was the only source of water within fifty miles, let alone the only living being.

Well, the entire point of this mission was to make absolutely sure this world was just as utterly lifeless as it seemed before calling in the Heartless to destroy it. It was just that it was so much easier to prove a world was _not_ lifeless than to prove that it _was_. Presuming this world was truly as lifeless as it looked right now, he could be out here for weeks, interrupted only by brief, sporadic visits to the Castle for reports and resupply, before Xemnas was actually satisfied.

 _Well, this_ is _kind of your natural reward for convincing him that you'd be more use at scouting and recon than doing the same kind of combat missions as everyone else all the time...and partly Zexion's fault because this used to be his job and he fucked up beautifully...hey, remember, technically, this is a promotion. You hauled Zexion's ass back when he tried to go rogue, congratulations, you got his old job._

 _Ganesha, I almost wish Saix had done it. Sure, Zexion would probably be dead now, but at least then I wouldn't necessarily have to be here...no, fuck it, I probably would. It's not like the boss would take Saix off combat rotation._

 _Okay, let's just change this to "Fuck you, Zexion, for being such an absolute fuckface that the Superior stopped trusting you to do your actual fucking job and handed it off to a Neophyte."_

 _...No, I would probably still be out here anyway, because motherfucking desert. And still without any fucking backup, because_ someone _doesn't trust me to be able to keep_ two _people hydrated for any great length of time..._

 _Fuck._

Well, if they were operating on the assumption that water equaled life and was universally necessary to sustain it, he was going to have some words to say on the subject when he got back. Come to think of it, if there was some form of life out here that didn't depend on water, he might never recognize it as such...for all he knew, the fucking rocks were sentient.

 _Hold the hell on. That way lies madness._

Hell, as far as he was concerned, _every_ way lay madness in this hellhole. There _was_ a polar star in this world, thank the Gods - north polar, he assumed, judging from its orientation relative to sunrise and sunset, but for all he knew, it could be a south polar star in a world where the sun rose in the west - but it, and a particularly tall pointy rock formation that had started out somewhere "east" of his location and gradually moved "southeast", were the only fixed landmarks he had to navigate by. Everything else was just sand and rocks, sand and rocks, sand and rocks, night after night, and he _had_ to travel by night because traveling during the heat of the day was actively life-threatening. Of course, deserts being deserts, the nights were fucking _cold_ , cold enough that he'd taken to wearing his blanket and ground sheet as capes. There were two moons, which were more helpful than a headlamp and flashlight, but of course the larger, brighter one was waning rapidly to nothing right now, and the smaller one was full, which meant that no doubt it would start waning next.

On the plus side, writing out the mission reports at the end ought to be a snap. There would be practically nothing for him to say.

Gods damn it all, what the hell kind of mission was it where writing out the reports promised to be more enjoyable than the mission itself? Either one that had completely gone to hell, or one that had started in hell and stayed there...

Also on the plus side, it wasn't like this mission was likely to get much worse. Even Demyx's active and paranoid imagination couldn't invent too many ways in which it possibly could. Especially when being bitten by a venomous reptile or stung by a poisonous arthropod would seem like an improvement. At least it would prove that either reptiles or arthropods existed in this world. And it would get him the fuck off this fucking mission.

The part that really sucked, when he thought about it (other than literally everything), was that he was working by sight and sight alone. There was nothing but sand and a faint whiff of dead volcano to smell, there was certainly nothing remotely watery around that he could sense, and he couldn't hear a damn thing except whatever song was currently stuck in his head. At the moment, that was the appropriate but irritating "A Horse With No Name".

 _Fuck it all, how am I supposed to do a proper survey of this world when I have, like, half a moon and two flashlights to go by? I may have great eyesight, but not fucking supernatural night vision...next time I go home, I need to requisition myself some fucking night-vision goggles. Then maybe I could do this fucking mission without going blind._

 _Though it's not like there's fucking anything to see anyhow. Even by daylight. And if I tried that, I'd just go blind even faster._

 _I've been through the desert on a horse with no name, it felt good to be out of the rain...in the desert, you can remember your name 'cause there ain't no one to give you no pain...la la la, la, I hate this fucking song, la la la, la, la..._

* * *

 _After two days in the desert sun, my skin began to turn red...after three days in the desert fun, I was looking at a river bed...and the story it told of a river that flowed made me sad to think it was dead..._

Demyx had been out there a lot longer than two or three days - at least six, possibly more; odds were he'd lost track of some time somewhere - but his policy of avoiding the hell out of the sun as much as possible, and covering every inch of skin he could during the hour or so after sunrise and before sunset when he had to face it, had saved him from significant sunburn. The river bed, however, was very real. From the depth of the channel, and the relative narrowness of it, it must have been a fast and powerful one once upon a time...but that was once upon a time. There weren't even dried-up little scrub plants clinging to the banks to suggest that maybe, once in every great while, the river actually flowed again briefly. It was clear proof (in addition to the fossils he kept finding) that the world had had water and life once, but no proof at all that it still did.

On the plus side, if he were to camp down there, there was very little risk of his stuff getting washed away by a flash flood he hadn't seen coming. Granted, it wasn't like he was ever in serious danger of that, but even he could get caught by surprise sometimes.

The sun had just set, so there was no point in worrying about a campsite until dawn. In the meantime, he finally had a landmark he could actually _follow_ , besides the polar star. The river bed stretched on, from southwest to northeast, as far as he could see in either direction, and it made a far more convenient path than anything he'd seen yet. Clenching his flashlight in his teeth and relying completely on his headlamp, he eased himself over the ledge that had once been a bank and carefully lowered himself down, trying not to lose anything important in the process.

The channel was about eight feet deep, which was about four feet deeper than he felt comfortable climbing, but he made it down without dropping anything or losing any valuable skin. He wasn't looking forward to eventually climbing back out, as he would no doubt need to sooner or later, but for now, he felt like he was in a pretty good position - convenient path, more and more consistent shelter than he'd had before (no more wasting time trying to find some kind of shade to camp in when at least half the channel would be shaded at any time of day), and the best possible route to any habitation, even traces of former habitation, that existed in this world. Plus, from down here, not having to stare at the endless expanse of desert, desert, and more desert, he could better appreciate things like the beautiful night sky. The larger moon was out of sight from this perspective, but the smaller moon was still just less than full, and there seemed to be more stars per square inch of sky than he could remember ever seeing before. If he wasn't deluding himself, the galactic band seemed to run straight overhead, perfectly parallel to this stretch of channel.

The ground underfoot sparkled as well, as he discovered when he took a few steps and found the pebbly surface less reliable than hard rock. Most of it was smooth, dark rocks and gravel, presumably washed from wherever the volcanoes used to be, but between the moonlight and his artificial lights, it wasn't hard to pick out the glimmer of faceted crystals. Out of idle curiosity, he reached for one, and found a clear crystal shaped vaguely like a double pyramid, roughly the size of his thumbnail, still attached to a smooth oval of black stone.

 _...Hang on...wouldn't the river have worn quartz smooth too?_

Well, it would depend on what sort of sand the river was carrying, he supposed, but he'd seen tons of quartz pebbles worn smooth by rivers, lakes, and oceans, and it seemed odd that this particular river, whenever and from wherever it had once flowed, would have left this crystal alone while wearing down the rock it was attached to. Maybe Lexaeus would know more about the phenomenon, and whether or not it meant anything; if he remembered, he could ask him when he went back to the castle. Meanwhile, he stuffed the crystal in his pocket and went on his way.

Whatever the crystal was composed of, it was clearly incredibly common; every sparkly bit he picked up seemed to be the same sort of thing, some still attached to other rocks, some on their own. Most of them were smaller, rougher, and duller than the first one, and were quickly dropped; some of them were unusually large, unusually well-formed, unusually clear, or unusually colored, and those were stashed along with the first. His favorite thus far was a big, clear, greenish-blue crystal he could barely close his hand around, but he wasn't making much forward progress, and he was getting to the point where he'd have to either get _really_ picky or give up on rock-collecting altogether before he accumulated too much extra weight.

 _...Don't quartz crystals usually have six sides? And these - at least the good-looking ones - all have four...I wonder what the hell this is..._

 _I wonder if it's anything valuable. I mean, it'd be a little too much to think I found an actual river of diamonds or something, but there are other white gemstones, right? And whatever this is has to be pretty hard, given that none of it has been worn down by the river at all...I'll have to look at these again in actual sunlight. See if they look different._

 _Won't the boss be impressed if it is valuable. Sure, the world may be a lifeless hellhole, but if we can just wander in and pick up gem-quality aquamarines or whatever off the ground, we wouldn't have to worry about munny for a long damn time. It's not like anyone else owns them._

 _Yeah, right. What are the actual odds._

 _Boy, am I not making progress. All right, enough rock-picking, time to move..._

* * *

After nine days, Demyx had lost interest in the crystals. He didn't want to think about the crystals. It was hardly worth his effort to remember the crystals were there, including the ones in his pocket he was keeping to ask Lexaeus about (and only to ask Lexaeus about, because damned if he wanted any kind of souvenir of this shit-ass mission). As far as the crystals were concerned - as far as the river bed was concerned - as far as the whole damn desert was concerned, he was dead out of fucks. The closest he could come to giving one was getting sick of the distracting sparkles every time he looked in the general direction of the ground.

 _Maybe I should get out of here and start walking on the actual ground again instead. At least up there I didn't have to look at this shit._

The river channel had widened and shallowed some as he went along, suggesting that he was headed what used to be downstream; all he cared about was that climbing out was going to be easier than climbing in had been. It also helped that his backpack was lighter than it had been; most of the water weight was still in there, but all the daily necessities, including food, had been drawn down heavily. He only had roughly two days' worth left before he needed to go home for supplies - the only thing he had to look forward to right now, it seemed. Devi, what wouldn't he give for a chance to take a nice, long shower and sleep in an actual bed for a night.

 _Devi, I'm getting jaded,_ he thought as he watched the smaller moon setting behind a distant mountain range; it was a beautiful sight, but he was long past caring. Maybe if he'd been able to come here on his own time, of his own accord...but the sad facts were that he was here on a mission, and a fucking obnoxious mission at that. Maybe eventually he'd look back on this and think about how beautiful the sky had been, and the river bed full of crystals, and wish he'd taken more time to enjoy it while he was there, but right now, his primary concern was setting up his tiny little camp stove and heating up just enough water to reconstitute whichever freeze-dried excuse for a meal he grabbed first. It so happened to be oatmeal, and this was supposed to be lunch, but he couldn't be bothered to exchange it for an entree. Food was food, calories were calories, warmth was warmth, and as long as he couldn't hole up in the kitchen for an hour and make himself something that actually tasted good, it would do.

 _Actually, this really isn't that bad...fuck me, I think I might be developing a taste for this shit. I've been out here way too fucking long. That's my priority list for my first trip back. Shower, decent sleep, actual meal. Maybe not in that order._

 _Ganesha, how fucking long am I going to be on this fucking mission before I either find intelligent life or the boss is finally satisfied that there isn't any?_ The Remover of Obstacles offered him no answer, leaving Demyx to entertain some very ugly thoughts of spending months crisscrossing this Gods-forsaken desert, living on a steady diet of the same five or six freeze-dried meals day after day after day, sleeping in his clothes on sand and rock and a thin ground sheet until an actual bed felt weird to him, never seeing another living being for more than a few hours every week or two...

"Fuck my life, I should have stayed on combat rotation," he said aloud, just to prove that he still remembered how to talk, and was rather surprised to hear nothing. His hearing aid batteries must have run out, and he'd never noticed because there had been nothing to hear anyway. Even then, he didn't bother changing them immediately; shoving down the rest of the oatmeal while it was still hot enough to do something about the biting chill was more important. His fundamental priorities were already changing, he realized, but he couldn't quite bring himself to care.

 _...Fuck my life, I need to go home. I'm losing it already._

He wanted to cry. Vaguely. His first priority was turning off his camp stove and cleaning out his tiny cook pot and packing his trash away, and then changing his hearing aid batteries just in case something actually existed in this world that he could hear.

It was kind of surprising that his body was taking this much punishment so well, considering its tendency to give out at random. Maybe he'd finally toughened up to the point where it actually made a difference. He'd been doing nothing but walk twenty miles a day for days, and he wasn't even particularly sore. Hopefully Vexen was grateful. _Vexen, grateful to a Neophyte? In what alternate universe?_ he thought to himself, and half-smiled, and tried to cling to that thought and that half-smile as a reminder of what sanity felt like.

All right, everything was packed, it was time to keep going...which way? Keep following the river channel northeast, or go back to following the polar star due north? Well, the river channel was a much more obvious landmark to keep track of, and if there was any life in this world, the river channel was probably a better way to find it...river channel it was, then. At least from the bank he wouldn't have to look at that annoying sparkle all the time.

 _...Oh, don't tell me the fucking_ horizon _is sparkling._

It wasn't so much sparkles as a single, tiny light moving directly along the northern horizon, flickering occasionally as if passing behind some obstacle he couldn't make out at the distance. The light refused to go away for his blinking and squinting, though it did change from white to red as it passed; he kept watching until it faded into the distance, but that was all it did.

 _...Okay. Let's go over everything we know that travels in a straight line, along the ground, at probably a pretty good clip but not ludicrously fast, that lights up white when seen from one side and red when seen from the other? Hmm, how about...a car?_

 _I don't know if this is absolute bullshit or the best thing that could possibly have happened._

All right, he couldn't call it right there and then, not without actually making some kind of contact. But even on the very slim chance that that was an automated drone he'd just seen, still out doing its business after its creators had gone extinct, he had concrete proof that this world had had intelligent life at some point.

 _Unless those lights weren't anything mechanical at all, just some kind of bizarre natural phenomenon that happened to look like headlights and taillights...or you're just hallucinating._

 _Oh, knock it the hell off._

* * *

Well, there was certainly a road, as it turned out. A paved, painted six-lane divided highway, complete with reflective dots, stretching out east and west as far as he could see, at that. Clearly this road had been designed for use, and by living beings that needed help seeing at night, instead of by robots that relied on programming alone. More than that, there were black patches on the pavement, where cracks had been repaired recently - recently enough that he could still smell a hint of tar. It wasn't just a road, it was a road that someone had built and was actively taking care of, as opposed to one that someone had built and abandoned.

 _"But the world could have been depopulated recently, or the maintenance could be taken care of by drones, this doesn't constitute proof of life, neh neh neh neh, go back and do your job properly!" Fuck, I hate this job. I should have stayed on combat rotation._

Well, if the only proof that would satisfy Xemnas for certain was actually meeting actual sentients, human or otherwise, then that was the proof Demyx would deliver for him, if it existed to deliver. No one built a road like this through a desert like this for no reason; it had to lead somewhere, and it stood to reason that somewhere was inhabited. Of course, somewhere could be three thousand miles away.

 _Unless the cars they make here are very different, or run on something very different, than back home, there's no way in hell they can make it three thousand miles, or however far it is from one side of this desert to the other, without stopping for fuel or anything. Even if the cars could, the drivers couldn't. Even if the speed limit was three hundred miles an hour - and that car I saw was_ never _going that fast - three thousand miles is ten hours. There's gotta be stops along the way. Refueling stations. Hotels. Restaurants. And assuming everything is fairly similar to home, I doubt they'll be more than two hundred miles apart._

 _Right. Yeah. Only two hundred miles. Great. Easy. At that rate, it should only take me another ten days. Easy._

 _...Actually, if I happened to be directly in between two towns, that would put me no more than a hundred miles from either...and the further I am from one, the closer I'll be to the next. Now the question is, which way's closer, east or west?_

 _Do they have road signs around here? They have to. It would make zero sense not to. I just have to find a road sign._

Well, his headlamp wasn't lighting up anything reflective and large enough to be a sign, even a little speed-limit sign, in either direction. Taking a good look around him to make sure he could portal back to this exact spot if need be, he randomly chose east and started walking.

By dinnertime, he was starting to regret his decision. He must have walked another eight or ten miles since first reaching the highway, and in that time he hadn't yet seen so much as a speed limit sign. The eastern sky was already starting to brighten imperceptibly, which meant he only had roughly three or four hours of travel time left before he had to make camp. In all the time he'd been hiking this damn desert, he'd never felt so tired. He was starting to think there - wait. Was that finally a sign up ahead? It was certainly rectangular, reflective, and apparently elevated, which was all he needed to know. He just couldn't read what it said yet. Was it a speed limit sign? A distance indicator? A warning about traveling during the heat of the day?

 _"Diamond River". Well...balls._

Well, it was somewhat appropriate, he supposed; as he got close enough to read it, he could tell the sign was at the head of a bridge over the dry river, and it only made sense that someone would see all the crystals at the bottom and think "diamonds". Still, as road signs went, this one was pretty much piss-worthless. He'd been hoping for something that would tell him how far to the nearest town, not just the name of the dead river...maybe he should portal back and try heading west instead. He didn't seem to be getting anywhere fast heading east...

And, of course, as he was turning around, he managed to catch his foot in the one unrepaired pothole in the entire highway.

He went down in a heap, sputtering a long stream of multilingual invective directed at the pothole, the highway, the river, the desert, the planet, both moons, the mission, the Organization, Xemnas, Zexion, Saix, and anything and anyone else that came to mind and seemed even tangentially at fault at the moment. He'd broken enough bones in his life to know he hadn't done any such thing this time; his ankle couldn't be any worse than sprained, but in some ways that made it worse. If it was broken, he could scratch this mission entirely; the most a sprain would get him was a few days off, and that if he was lucky.

 _Okay, don't be stupid. No matter how badly Xemnas wants this survey done, it'd be stupid to expect me to spend days limping around on a bad ankle, especially out here. And I would be stupid to try it. I know I have a first-aid kit, but it wasn't meant for something like this. I don't have any ice to put on it, just the one non-reusable cold pack. And I can't just camp and wait three or four days when I only have enough food left for two. Logic dictates it's time to go home for a while._

Well, whatever else he did, he ought to start by getting out of the road. Fortunately, there was a convenient guardrail he could use to pull himself up onto his good foot...would his bad ankle bear any weight at all? A little, which was good, but only a little, and he didn't feel like testing it for long. Good thing there was this guardrail, otherwise he'd be in even worse trouble...Gods damn it, this _would_ happen. One pothole in...possibly thousands of miles of meticulously-maintained highway, and of course he would trip and sprain his ankle in it.

 _Maybe it's not sprained. Maybe it's just twisted a little bit and it'll be fine once the initial sting goes away_ , he thought, trying to look on the brightest side possible, but it was a waste of time. It didn't hurt enough for a fracture, but it definitely hurt too much for a little strain that would stop hurting in a second. Still silently cursing his luck, he paused for a moment, propped up on his good leg and the guardrail, just to glare bitterly at the sky of this Godforsaken world.

There was a light on the western horizon, at ground level. It was a little hard to tell from this angle, but it did seem likely that it was heading directly his way. Whether this was simply remarkably convenient, or whether it was a little _too_ convenient, was not something he felt like worrying about right now. Maybe, if he hung around in plain sight looking pathetic enough, he could get a free ride into town, wherever the hell "town" was. He could also find himself in the clutches of a maniacal robot serial killer, but what the hell, he'd probably find a way out of that somehow. It was far more likely that the driver would ignore him completely and leave him by the side of the road with a bum ankle, and he'd be exactly where he started. Then again...this _was_ his life. Odds were that it _would_ be the maniacal robot serial killer.

Oh, well. Nothing to do now except wait, and watch it get closer...and wait...and watch it get closer...and wait...and watch it get closer...and wait...and wait...it was slowing down, right? It had to be slowing down to take this long to get here...

It was a truck. Of all damn things, it was a regular run-of-the-mill 18-wheeler. And yes, it was slowing down and pulling over. Demyx couldn't see a whole lot very clearly through the glare of the headlights, but he could see the outline of the driver getting out and coming over to him, and he could dimly hear them saying something, though he couldn't make out what. By the time he could actually hear them, they were practically in his face and shouting _"ARE. YOU. ALL. RIGHT."_ angrily, as if it was entirely his fault he was deaf.

"Oh, I'm fine, except for this bum ankle. And, you know, actually being deaf and not really able to hear much. Sorry about that. You know how it is. Anyway, how are you?" He couldn't see the driver's face clearly, backlit as they were by the headlights, but he hoped they were at least a little embarrassed. "But seriously, I'm in trouble here. I can't walk anywhere on this ankle, and I definitely can't hang out here and wait until it gets better."

He could - vaguely - see the truck driver nodding slowly. "Do you need a ride into town?" they - she, now he could hear the voice more clearly - asked, loudly enough for him to hear but without the deliberate talking-to-an-idiot slowness.

"That's exactly what I need," he said, relieved that the mission was essentially over - behold, proof of intelligent life; no need to call the Heartless in. But the ordinary hiker he was pretending to be would be relieved that he wasn't going to be stranded in the desert with a bum ankle. "I should have a supply drop waiting for me there anyway. Just as long as I can get somewhere I can rest until I can walk again. Get a doctor to look at me. Make sure it's not broken."

The truck driver nodded again. "Technically, I shouldn't be doing this, but what the boss don't know won't hurt her," she said, and offered her arm to help him over to the truck.

* * *

The ride into town took place in relative silence, not that Demyx would have been able to hear much over the engine noise anyway. The truck driver talked a few times into a handheld radio, but showed no interest in talking to him, which he was okay with. He was content to enjoy watching the night scenery go by without him having to leg it the whole way, and to nudge his gear around the footwell with his good foot instead of having to haul it. By his estimation, they'd gone about forty miles so far, which was just about as far as he could have made it on the food he had left...and before he'd even started watching for it, an exit ramp suddenly appeared on the right, and the driver veered off onto it and into a brightly-lit tunnel...no, the entire town, it seemed, had been built underground, with buildings right up to the ceiling of an artificial cavern two stories high.

The truck driver pulled up to a particularly large one, that had gas pumps out front and a prominent sign reading "FUEL - FOOD - ROOMS", and came right alongside the front door before stopping, getting out, and going around to help him out. "Thank you," he finally said in the most heartfelt way he could, as she helped him gather up his gear as well. "If you hadn't come along, I'd have been completely screwed out there."

"Don't mention it," the driver said, as she helped him inside; it was a lot easier to understand her now that there was enough light to see her face. "I have a little brother who used to go hiking out there all the time. I can just imagine if he'd gotten himself hurt when he was out there alone. You got any older sisters?"

"Uh...no," he said, wondering what that had to do with anything. "Just brothers."

"Oh. Well, they must worry about you too," she said as she helped him into a seat near what seemed to be the check-in counter. "You got any money?"

"Yeah. I got a credit card." And he did; one of Luxord's ever-useful universal credit cards, wherever and however he got his hands on those. It seemed to satisfy the driver, who went up to the desk herself, apparently to make her own arrangements for the night. While he was waiting for her to finish so he could get a room, he glanced over at the case next to him, which contained local souvenirs of the tourist-trap variety - postcards and posters of scenery, framed maps, fossils made into jewelry, and crystals like he'd found in the river bed, neatly boxed and displayed with little tags indicating their origin and price.

 _Blue diamond, Diamond River, Continental Desert. $30. Peacock diamond, Diamond River, Continental Desert. $45. White diamond, East Diamond River, Continental Desert. $100._ That last one was huge, roughly the same size as the peacock-blue one he'd found earlier that he could barely close a fist around, and he dragged it out of his pocket for comparison. Yes, they were roughly the same size, but the white diamond on display was pretty rough, whereas his diamond seemed to have a nice, clean crystal structure, and to be clear all the way through.

 _Well. Holy shit. I guess there are all kinds of worlds out there; it only makes sense that there would, somewhere out there, be one where diamonds are kinda worthless...but how fucking much would this be worth back home?_

 _"Can I help you?"_ someone demanded from somewhere behind him, and he jerked, stuffing his diamond back in his pocket quickly. He managed to babble something about needing a room for a couple nights, and having a bad ankle so he couldn't walk too far, his brain still trying to calculate the worth of the diamonds in his pocket. Apparently he was still making sense, though, because the woman behind the counter just nodded along with his babbling. "All right, rooms are $80 a night. The restaurant is open 24/7. We don't normally do room service, but in your case, we can definitely bring something to you instead of making you walk all the way back. Here's a menu for you; just call the front desk when you're ready to order, and mention the ankle. Showers are $30 for ten minutes, if you want one."

 _...$30 for a ten-minute shower? I'm sure as dry as the desert is, it stands to reason water would be a precious commodity, but...with a low-flow showerhead, that's over a dollar a gallon. I'm not sure these diamonds are a dollar a carat._ Out of curiosity, Demyx flipped through the restaurant menu, and discovered that even the soft drinks were roughly the same prices as the entrees; a simple glass of water was $4.95. Clearly, the diamonds-water paradox had no standing in this world.

 _...I could be a fucking king around here. I mean, not that I would...but I could._

"Um...I'll pass on the shower for now, but are there any clinics around here where I can get my ankle looked at tomorrow? And where's the post office in this town? I should have a supply drop waiting there," he said, rearranging his gear to pick up and take with at a moment's notice. Technically, at this point, he should be going straight home to report the mission complete and start doing his paperwork, but he just didn't feel like it quite yet. The longer he stayed, after all, the more useful information he could gather, and he was kind of starting to like this world.


End file.
